by Fiona Neal
The Flame on The Moor
By
Fiona Neal
Copyright 2016
This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, events, or places is purely coincidental.
No part of this work may be copied without the permission of the author.
The Isle of Skye
1752
Prologue
“The man is a blackguard!”
Deirdre, Countess of Ballanross, reined back her chestnut mare. Eyes wide, she stared across the heather-swept moor, watching giant flames leap into the sullen sky. Consuming the thatch on the tiny stone cottage, the blaze cast its eerie glow over the length and breadth of the narrow glen.
Deirdre turned to the tall, lean gentleman astride the bay gelding beside her. “Hazlet MacLean has evicted the Widow MacLean, Uncle Robert. Now he'll use the croft to graze his sheep, as he has done to all his tenants. We must help her!”
“Have a care, Deirdre,” Sir Robert MacLeod's kind blue eyes conveyed his wariness. “We have no right to interfere between landlord and tenant. Hazlet is our neighbor with every legal right to manage his estate as he sees fit.”
“But no moral right,” Deirdre argued, shivering against the bite of the rising wind. “The poor widow is recovering from the birth of her bairn. She is still in bed and has no one but her eight-year-old son to help her. Would you leave them to starve?”
“Nay, I would not.” He shook his head. “But it will solve nothing to beggar ourselves by taking in every poor crofter driven from the land, my child.”
Deirdre lifted her chin a notch. “I am no child, and by the conditions of this earldom, this estate belongs to me. I’ll bankrupt it if I choose.”
“Control the hot temper that comes with those red locks of yours, lass. Until you reach your majority, I am your legal guardian, and you will not get a brass farthing. I intend to turn over a profitable estate to you.” His handsome face took on a wistful expression. “I gave your dying mother my sacred promise.”
Thunder rolled in the distance, and the ominous warning caused their mounts to prance restively.
“I refuse to discuss finances while the woman and her children are suffering.” She abruptly wheeled her animal around.
“Deirdre, don’t interfere!”
Ignoring his warning, she spurred her mount to full gallop, feeling her hairpins slip from beneath her tricorn hat. The wind caught her tresses and flailed them like a red whip across her face as she sped across the moor to the widow’s aid.
When she halted her horse, a group of gaunt, ragged crofters huddled together around a reclining body. They gaped at the leaping fire while the constable and MacLean’s tacksman stood guard.
Riding crop in hand, Deirdre dismounted and rushed to the prone woman’s side. The voracious flames radiated fierce heat, and billows of black, sulfurous-smelling smoke ascended forebodingly like a giant mushroom before the stiff breeze dispersed it.
Face smudged with dirt, eyes dull and sunken, the bony widow was on the cold, damp ground; her tattered, stained homespun garb her sole protection from the elements. The infant in the woman’s arms appeared quite still, the tiny face as pale as a snowdrop.
Connor, the poor wretch’s son, knelt sobbing by his mother, his face streaked with tears and soot.
Deirdre directed a glare at the constable. “In God’s name, have you no mercy?”
“I am following my orders, noble lady.” The wiry, short man held up the eviction notice, and it flapped in the wind.
Deirdre shook her riding crop at them. “Then follow them to the deepest pit in Hades.”
“Lady Ballanross,” Sir Robert MacLeod called out, always careful to use her title when they were in public. “May I have a word with you?” He urged his gelding closer.
Deirdre nodded as he dismounted and strode to her.
“My lady,” he whispered. “Measure your words, or you’ll find yourself in the tolbooth for treason. Then the king’s men will level our estate as they did to the MacLeods of Raasay.”
“Shall I stand idly by while the Sassenachs impose laws that ravish the land and destroy our customs?” she murmured through clenched teeth. “Lairds such as Hazlet MacLean who profit from such decrees betray their own clansmen for profit.”
“I am merely asking you to show some discretion,” her uncle replied. “Besides, we have no quarrel with the English. Our branch of the clan never raised our swords at Culloden.”
A sudden gust of wind delivered an icy downpour, dousing the fire and causing the blackened ruins of the cottage to hiss and steam to rise along with the smoke.
Her yellow riding habit getting drenched, Deirdre returned to the woman and knelt by her side. “Don’t concern yourself, Mistress MacLean. You and your bairns will make your home with me.”
“God bless you, my lady, but it is too late. My wee lassie has gone to her Creator, and the low road beckons me as well. Please, take Connor. He is a good lad.” She gasped, and a rattle sounded in her throat. The widow closed her dark eyes, and her head rolled to one side.
“Mother,” the lad cried, throwing himself on the lifeless woman.
Lightning forked the sky, and a fierce clap of thunder boomed like cannon fire over the moors.
Deirdre put her hand on his black, curly head. “She is gone, lad. She and your wee sister bide in heaven now. They are at peace.”
His filthy clothes now sodden, Connor rose up on his knees and turned to her. The look of despair in his huge, brown eyes flayed her heart, and Deirdre gulped back her tears, recalling her own mother’s death so long ago.
She took his grimy, wet hand in hers. “Come, Connor.”
The boy stood, his skinny frame racked with sobs.
“You,” she called to the onlookers. “Show the deceased some respect and move them to shelter until I can send a cart. We’ll give them a Christian burial at Ballanross Manor.”
Deirdre turned to view the smoking wreckage of the cottage. The law denied her access to her fortune for three years.
But somehow, I will find a way to help these crofters.
The Isle of Skye
1754
Chapter One
“Hurry, Fergus. Load the guns!” Deirdre urged as the sound of horse’s hooves and the rattle of coaches echoed through the hills.
“Aye, my lady,” the tall, dark-haired man said and scrambled around the boulders atop the wooded promontory, igniting the last of the flaming beacons placed among the rocks on the summit’s edge.
“I’ll wager the torches will dupe our guests.” Deirdre raised the spyglass. Through the mist drifting about the lace of new foliage, she scanned the scene below the steep hills bordering the narrow glen. A procession of conveyances snaked along the tortuous road carved in the gap.
“It appears that Lord Kilbraeton is taking no chances.” Deirdre returned the glass to the tawny leather case dangling from the belt securing her breeches. “I counted an escort of eight redcoats.” Reaching into her jacket pocket, she withdrew a black hooded mask, slipping it over her head and carefully tucking her long red locks into it.
Fergus shook his head. “I wish you’d change your mind about this venture, my lady.” He opened a powder horn and sat on the ground near a collection of pistols. “It’s daft to be robbing your betrothed, and him being a judge. Why risk capture by the one man in Scotland who swore to see you hang?”
“He must catch me first.” Deirdre tried to hide her fears, but she instinctively put her hand to her throat. “Besides, I have another year before I come into my inheritance. Effie MacLean and her kin must leave the glen soon. They must have money to start a life elsewhere, or they’ll starve.”
The young midwife and her brother’s
family were the latest casualties to fall victim to Hazlet MacLean’s cruel evictions. Two years ago, he had forced the poor Widow MacLean and her children out of their home. The poor woman and her newborn daughter died, so Deirdre had taken in Connor, the poor wretch’s only son.
And Deirdre became The Flame, a bandit who robbed from the rich to give to the poor because she could find no other way to help them. In the process, she risked capture and death.
“I wonder if Lord Kilbraeton would be so anxious to see The Flame swing if he knew the outlaw was really the bride he intended to wed in a few days.” A roguish smile split his handsome face when he handed her two primed pistols.
The odor of gunpowder teased her nostrils as Deirdre stuffed their barrels beneath her belt. “I doubt that detail would deter the righteous Avenger of Scotland.” She looked up, meeting his gaze. “From past experiences, you know better than anyone else that he is famous for his adherence to the letter of the law.”
The man rolled his eyes. “Then I beg the Almighty have mercy on us, my lady, for his lordship never will. I ken the Campbells would like to leave our bodies dangling from the gallows to rot just as they did with poor James O’ the Glen.”
His words caused Deirdre to shudder as she trod through the bluebells carpeting the hillside, making her way toward the branch of a scrub oak where she hastily un-tethered the reins of their mounts. “If you feel uneasy, Fergus, I give you leave to depart, but I must continue. The hollow eyes of the starving bairns stalk my dreams.”
Fergus rubbed the back of his neck. “You always urge me to leave, but how can I desert you? I owe you my life. Still, I cannot help thinking that we have just so much luck, and ours is bound to run out. After all, The Flame has been riding the moors for two years now.”
His words rang true, but she must encourage him and herself, for that matter, because Deirdre always needed every scrap of fortitude she could muster to carry out her plans.
“But the tarot cards foretold a favorable outcome, Fergus.” Stooping, she lifted the red-plumed, black tricorn from the ground, setting it atop her head.
The man’s eyes widened. “My mother always said that tarot cards were the tools o’ the devil himself.”
His words sent fear slithering down her spine. Had she misread the cards? Their message had seemed strange. The Lovers had turned up, but Deirdre knew she could never love Ian Campbell, Lord Kilbraeton. The man upheld the Sassenach laws that smashed the clan system and drove the crofters from land they had worked for centuries. Now, Ian had sworn to see The Flame brought to the gallows.
Well, she had not signed the marriage contract yet, and she never would!
But now, more urgent business demanded her attention. Stuffing the toe of her boot into the stirrup, Deirdre mounted her bay. “Do not forget the sack, Fergus.”
“I shall not, my lady.” He smiled, slipping the sack’s drawstring over the crook of his arm. Securing his mask and hat, Fergus swung onto his horse.
Deirdre flipped her midnight cape over her shoulders and turned to Fergus, nodding. Leaning back in their saddles to keep their balance, they descended the steep incline toward the narrow trail in the glen.
* * * *
“Oh!” Lady Glenmuir clutched the wide brim of her white-plumed, sapphire velvet hat, her rotund body bouncing on the seat as the coach hit a bump. “This trip has shocked my nerves, Ian. I should never have left Kilbraeton were it not for your wedding.”
“Perhaps a nap will calm you, Aunt Barbara.” Ian exchanged a concerned glance with Rory Rose, the Earl of Strathaven, who sat on the facing seat beside the childless widow.
The woman’s blue, child-like eyes grew round. “Dear boy, I should never sleep a wink with The Flame at large. One never knows where that rogue will pounce next.”
Ian shook his head. “The scoundrel will not dare attack the king’s soldiers.”
“Who knows?” the woman replied, double chin trembling. “Such a fiend robbed of us our dear Janet.”
Strathaven’s black brows knitted above his gray eyes.
Ian flinched inwardly as the memory seared his heart yet again. His parents killed in a carriage accident, he had taken his sixteen-year-old sister on a trip to Edinburgh, hoping to allay their grief. On their way, a highwayman’s pistol ball penetrated her heart—a shot meant for him.
The vision of that crimson stain, widening like the ripples in a pool on the bodice of her white frock, haunted his dreams. The murderer remained at large—a fact that stuck in Ian’s craw.
“Let us speak of something else,” Strathaven suggested.
Without warning, the coach jolted to a halt as gunshots blasted through the glen. Aunt Barbara screamed as her heavy body slammed into Ian’s. Hats flew, and a cloud of powder exploded from his aunt’s white wig.
“What the devil!” Strathaven rasped out as his tall frame hit the floor.
Ian struggled up, helping his aunt back to her seat. Opening the coach door, he debarked. Apprehension churned in his gut when he noticed a felled tree barricading the narrow pass between the two steep hills.
“Throw down your weapons and alight, all of you, or his lordship and company won’t live to witness another sunrise.”
Ian turned, but saw no bandit as the strangely pitched voice filtered through the fog.
“And if you harbor a notion to disobey,” the voice warned, “look to the summit of the brae. My men will cut you down without mercy if you fail to comply.”
Ian gazed up. At least two dozen torches faintly blazed through the mist-shrouded slope as two more shots erupted. Outnumbered, and in the sights of so many enemy guns, they found themselves completely helpless. Behind him, Ian heard flintlocks thwack to the ground as the soldiers dropped their weapons. The servants in the rest of the vehicles stepped out.
Rage stormed Ian’s heart when he saw a rider clad in black, save for the red plumes crowning his tricorn, emerge from the haze like an apparition from hell. In the scoundrel’s wake, a larger man rode into view. The huge lout dismounted and retrieved all the firearms, placing them in a large sack hanging from the crook in his arm.
Ian turned as Strathaven helped Aunt Barbara stumble from the carriage. Her eyes wide with terror, she hurried to Ian, clutching his arm. “It’s The Flame,” she shrieked.
“At your service, my lady,” the rapscallion answered. Doffing his hat in a wide arc, he then replaced it.
“He will kill us all,” his aunt wailed.
“Calm yourself, Lady Glenmuir,” Strathaven murmured.
Ian put his arm around her. “It will be all right, Aunt Barbara.”
“You’ve nothing to fear from me if you will fill this purse with your money and jewels. And you needn’t bother the servants or coachmen for their coin. I do not take from the poor.” He threw a leather sack to the ground. “Redcoats, dismount and march to that big oak with your hands over your heads. Coachmen, remove the harnesses from the teams.”
The scoundrel’s orders obeyed, The Flame’s huge accomplice rounded up all their horses and spooked them into the hills.
Fury boiling, Ian wished he had a pistol or a sword, but since Culloden, all such weapons except the sgian dhu were banned in the Highlands. As a judge, he obeyed as well as upheld the law, unlike these highwaymen.
Besides, the vision of Janet, his young sister, so pale and bleeding, banished any thought of resistance from Ian’s mind.
Instead, he observed every detail about these rogues, noticing that The Flame held his gun with his left hand.
Coins clinked as Ian and Strathaven emptied their purses and passed the small satchel around to the soldiers. A few tense minutes later, one of them returned the full pouch to Ian.
The Flame moved his mount closer. The now heavy mist drifted about the swirling flare of his dark cape as Ian glared at the man. Because of the fog, and the hooded mask, he could not really see the blackguard’s eyes very well. But how Ian wanted to tear the knave from the saddle and unmask him!
; The Flame’s horse retreated a few steps as the scoundrel said, “And now for those jewels, my lady.”
Aunt Barbara’s hands trembled violently as she struggled to slip the sapphire and diamond ring from her chubby finger. Finally she met with success and dropped it into the purse Ian held open for her. Next, she fumbled, trying to unlatch her necklace. “Oh, I cannot.”
“Let me help you, my lady.” Ian stepped round to her back and opened the clasp of the sapphire necklace.
“And the earrings,” The Flame added.
Somehow, his aunt managed to dislodge the dangling earrings and slipped them into the leather bag.
The huge lout came forward and took the loot. Ian suppressed an urge to grab the robber and punch him senseless. But The Flame’s pistol, aimed at Aunt Barbara’s heart, gave him pause.
Ian refused to be the cause of another woman’s death. Moreover, Ian was sure the armed bandits up on the hill watched, ready to cut them all down in an instant.
“Now, my lords,” The Flame declared, “I’ll be on my way and allow you to proceed on yours.”
The bandits wheeled their horses around and dashed up the hill, disappearing into the now opaque mist as gunfire erupted from the hill.
“Oh, my dear boy,” his aunt cried, throwing herself into Ian’s arms.
Holding her, Ian realized that though he could not see the bandits, he should still hear the pounding of the horses’ hooves. But he could not. How did the rogues vanish so quickly, so silently, and so completely?
* * * *
Two hours later, Deirdre slipped into the sallyport of the square sandstone tower defending the east wing of the manor house. Changed from her disguise, she now wore an old, royal- blue riding habit. She tiptoed, the task made difficult by her boots, up the steps, hoping to elude her uncle. She hurried down the hall, just clearing the master suite, when the door flew open, causing her to start and turn.